The day the earth moved in Ottawa

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His eight books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. He is currently working on a book about the Harper majority government to be published in the autumn of 2014 by Penguin Canada.

While the prime minister was flipping flapjacks at the Calgary Stampede (flanked by cabinet colleagues in skin-tight western gear — it looked like was he presiding over cowhand night at Weight Watchers), the political earth was moving in Ottawa. Not an earthquake, just a solid tremor worthy of note.

There was the rally for the death of evidence on Parliament Hill, and then, just down the street at the Supreme Court, a deliberation that could end up sending the voters of Etobicoke-Centre back to the ballot box or tapping out the bank account of Borys Wrzesnewskyj for no discernible return.

Let’s start with the funeral procession in which about 2000 people, most of them scientists, made their way from the Ottawa Conference Centre to the front steps of Parliament. Some people thought the crowd was a feature of the fact that there was a science convention in town and the organizers had a captive audience of 2500 scientists.

Not so. Only 500 of the conventioneers were Canadian, the rest international attendees. The out of country scientists clearly got it. They were mourning the death of evidence and walked behind a coffin borne by six pall bearers. The first thing they saw when they turned off Wellington into the grounds of Parliament was an RCMP cruiser parked broadside to the main entrance surrounded by metal barriers.

Welcome to the seat of our democracy.

This throng of scientists caught the attention of tourists posing in front of the Centennial Flame, of picnickers sprawling on the lawn, and of curious sea-gulls gleaning for leftovers. For one thing, some of the signs the marchers were carrying were pretty elaborate.

My favorite was a guy who showed up on his bike with a telescope taped to his cycling helmet. His sign read: “Searching desperately for signs of intelligent life on Parliament Hill.”

Others made signs out of dubious quotes from members of the Harper government: “We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics – Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.”

Perhaps the most incisive sign made its point in just three words: “Evidence, not propaganda.”

But another reason the summer people and the seagulls noticed the throng that took over the Hill for an hour and half was who they were. They were scientists. A lot of them were wearing white coats. Scientists normally study and run experiments. They present papers and answer peer reviews. They get excited about things that most people don’t know about it. They think and dream according to the long hours of the cosmic clock. They are society’s unseen benefactors, lovely nerds living on an epistemological plane of inquiry and discovery. What they don’t usually do is attend protest rallies. And as for society, when people are looking for political insight, they don’t necessarily rush to their local physicist or evolutionary biologist. Pity.

So why did so many scientists who usually leave the sordid chaos of what public affairs has become to the ink-dogs and the snake oil salesman, to the lobbyists and low-lifes, gather in large numbers to speak out against the guys who control the grant money? The answer is simple: the scientists are the first professional group in Canada to realize with the full force of incontrovertible evidence that a tyrant is at the helm, or more precisely, a wannabe tyrant. And they are also the first, non-partisan group who have drawn a line in the sand beyond which they will not assume the position.

Stephen Harper has provided the data needed to justify their conclusion on the basis of an experiment he himself has been running. How much can he deliver to the 1 percent before the 99 percent will wake up, let alone rise up? How many lies and liars can be protected by the PMO? It is one thing to have different policies, even stealthy ones never announced in election campaigns, but it is quite another to unilaterally dismantle our system of governance and pander exclusively to regime favorites. After all, Harper is a leader who believes in neither free speech nor Parliament. As former Speaker Peter Milliken recently told me “He can’t go much further in undermining Parliament. If he does, it will become completely dysfunctional. For that reason, I think it will become necessary for someone else to undo the things he has done.”

Journalists who have decided their job is to protect the flanks of this klepto-corporate cult known as the Harper government find such talk over-the-top. I find their quibbles craven and irresponsible. How about when over-the-top is right on the money? Dr. Vance Trudeau started his remarks at the Death of Evidence rally by saying that the scientists were very peaceful but not very happy. He explained why he was there. “My friends can’t speak out.” The government was using propaganda not facts to devise policy. It was silencing people who opposed them. It was, Dr. Trudeau, observed, a little like the ghost of Duplessis was abroad in the land. That should even get John Ibbitson’s blood boiling. Doesn’t he make his living practising free speech? If free speech is at bay, isn’t the house on fire John, your house and mine?

More of Canada’s blue chip wags might have had their eyes opened a little had they spent some time on the lawn of Parliament this week with the scientists instead of gazing into the looking glass of their prejudices. They would have learned from biologist Jeff Hutchings that Stephen Harper is putting up an “Iron Curtain” between science and society. They would have learned that Canada’s fisheries minister Keith Ashfield complained that current laws didn’t leave enough leeway for polluting the country’s fresh water. Hutchings also pointed out what happens when bad public policy overtakes good science – you get the demise of the northern cod, the greatest collapse of a vertebrate species in Canadian history that threw record numbers of Canadians out of work and cost the treasury billions of dollars in support payments.

This week’s rally on Parliament Hill was ostensibly to mourn the death of evidence in general and the closing down of the Experimental Lakes Area in particular by the Harper government. It was, arguably, the dumbest decision touching science and the environment by a government famous in this area only for the number of Fossil Awards it has won. But much more was started at this rally than the airing of a particular grievance in a quaint showing of moral clarity.

I say that because although famous scientists and well-known public personalities like Maude Barlow spoke at the rally, it was organized by students. The save ELA movement is being led by a woman three months away from getting her PhD, but Diane Orihel has laid down her studies to stand up for science in the political arena. She was front and centre at the rally delivering a speech that put most national columnists and opposition MPs to shame. Her colleague, Adam Houben, also a PhD student, talked about the growing support across the country from young scientists based on their demand for “basic freedom of speech” and “open science within a transparent government.” What the Harper government has on offer is not much different from what Vladimir Putin is offering his frustrated citizens. “Shut up and do what you’re told” are not hortatory injunctions that sit well in Canadian ears.

Meanwhile, over at the Supreme Court, another event of great importance to the country was being played out. One of the men at its centre, former Etobicoke-Centre MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, has spent over $300,000 of his personal money for his day in court. Still, he got a good sleep on the eve of his appearance before the Supremes, and relished surprising expressions of support from unexpected quarters: “I was walking down the street outside my hotel in Ottawa and a cab driver honked his horn and gave the victory sign.”

And then there was the comment on his Facebook page, in which a Ukrainian correspondent hearkened back to the days when Borys and his future wife acted as electoral observers in the Orange Revolution. The former member of the Democratic Front wrote “So we see, Borys, that the day has sadly arrived in Canada where you are facing the same problems we have had defending democracy in Ukraine.”

Despite all the media stories and all the editorial huffing and puffing about what the top court should decide, what happened in Etobicoke-Centre is one of the least understood stories of the year. Some editorialists have attacked even speculative questions about what may have happened in this federal riding where a Superior Court judge declared the result on election day null and void. They say there is no evidence of anything other than clerical error and certainly not a shred of evidence suggesting there may have been ballot box stuffing.

The fundamental error with that analysis is that they are basing the conclusion strictly on what has so far arisen in court. The trouble is, what has been going on in court has been a very careful game of chess involving a very circumscribed set of facts adduced to get the election result overturned. There has never been the attempt to tell the full story of what happened on election night in some of the 230 odd polls in Etobicoke-Centre.

That story is going to land in the lap of Elections Canada, and when that day comes, the agency that is charged with guaranteeing the integrity of our election system is going to have a lot more to explain than clerical errors.

Why didn’t Elections Canada study all the polls in Etobicoke-Centre as they had promised to do? How could 177 voter registrations go missing? How did people get ballots to vote when they did not live in the riding? Why did EC officials say no one voted in improper polls and then say they allowed a group of tired seniors to vote by registration certificates even though they didn’t live in the poll. Unfortunately for EC, Borys and his legal team have photo copies of all poll book entries, including the date of birth of those who voted by registration certificates. Only a handful were seniors. Why didn’t alarm bells go off at EC, when one of their officials entering certificates of registration poll by poll from Etobicoke-Centre opened up an envelope that should have contained 33 such certificates and found none?

I asked Borys if he gets the chance to run again should the Supreme Court uphold the lower court decision, would he run the same kind of campaign. “Absolutely not. This time we will have inside scrutineers. And we’ll have lawyers if we can’t have video cameras.”

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

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The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.